Heaven's Recent Wonders: or the Works of Lourdes

ANY a time, care-worn and burdened denizens of earth feel themselves impelled to cry out; Is there a God who cares for us? Is prayer of any avail? Is faith not all a matter of training, of environment, of imagination, of nervous excitement or of mental exaltation? Is there any palpable evidence under the sun all but compelling an affirmative answer to the first questions and a negative to the last? Is there any visible witness to the Divine guidance of the Catholic Church as Jehovah gave to the Jews of old and as Christ gave to men when He walked among them? Is there a voice from Heaven which comes to people as it came to Saul on the road to Damascus and which, dispensing with a long course of study, argument and even preparatory prayer, suddenly bids the infidel to say: "Lord, what wilt Thou that I do?" The most stolid when acquainted with the facts must answer: 'Yes, at Lourdes there is all that and more! There indeed are literally verified the significant words of the Catholic liturgy Vidi aquam, etc., i.e.: I saw water issuing from the right side of the temple and all to 1vlwrn that water came were saved or made whole; yes, practically all who go there and thousands who can not repair thither, but who either prayerfully or even unconsciously or indifferently use that water, have been and are healed altogether or partly, physically or spiritually, of the most inveterate and hopeless diseases. And as when Our Saviour was on earth it was chiefly His chosen people who were directly benefited by His ministrations, nevertheless at times, as with the Canaanite woman, His mercies were extended even to the heathen, so in our days, while the bulk of those cured at Our Lady's grotto, are members of His Church, Protestants, Jews and Mahommedans, are in certain cases the recipients of Mary's extraordinary favors. Witness those published in the Ave Maria a few years ago by an English priest, Dr. R. Howley, and the numerous cures obtained at the chapel of Our Lady of Lourdes of the Georgian Fathers in Constantinople by Mussulmans and Israelites.